I mean that you can't draw the conclusion "it must have been designed" from the observation "There's only a 0.001% chance it could have happened over the known timeline". As far as we can tell, the universe doesn't seem to be full of life, so it may well be that it's something that very rarely happens.
I'm not drawing the conclusion it must be designed. I am drawing the conclusion it is -plausible- it is designed. I know precisely the scope of claims I am making, and am making them to precisely that degree. I will be continuing to decline amplification of "evidence" to "proof" and "is plausible that" to "must be". I know the arguments after the amplification is implicitly accepted, for those who fail to notice, or don't know exactly what their position is. I'm not among them. My objection, from the beginning, was and stems from your statement that you apparently know that design will not be a conclusion in the unknown future of science. I continue to maintain that you cannot, and am not claiming that I can "prove God did it". We have, though, as knowns, 1 "successful" production of intelligent life out of 1 verifiable universe "attempts"--if we allow for teleology--and this in itself to me speaks to plausibility, though not "proof".
Er, no, you haven't. You've not even described a single thing you think is irreductibly complex. You just keep claiming that there is, but never show.
I'm not sure if I'm being unclear, or if my point is just so rock-simple on its basic level that you can't believe my point was actually what it was--but it is. I showed you a picture of fluorescent cats that were demonstrably designed, by virtue of being designed by genetic engineers. I am quite aware of the effect an established paradigm has over habitual interpretation of information, and I am attempting to break that paradigm for the purposes of discussion by pointing out a fact which, though it may be banal, is conveniently unarguably true. We cannot, as a matter of fact and science, say "We can account for all biological features without reference to design". This can no longer be -accurately- proposed as a universal fact about biology. It's immediately falsified by present-day genetic engineering. Were I discussing it with a biology professor, say, in a class, I'd actually make him do the circumlocution every time he made a claim from the perspective of naturalism, such as "evolution and ancillary processes can account for all biological features" to say, if nothing else, "evolution and ancillary processes can account for all biological features up until approximately 1970 A.D." Why? Because a) it's the rendering of the statement that actually is scientifically viable, and b) it forces consideration of the issue outside of a default paradigm. Further, this impacts the question of testability--on the face of it, either we are suddenly unable to test for basic facts (testing to detect design, performed by testing the organism itself, rather than happening to know it was designed from publications/media about the engineers), or testability in this case has wider aspects than a simple "not testable, not scientific" (lest we be forced to say that fluorescent cats were designed is a fact, but this is not a "scientific fact").
The largest problem I have is that "complexity" isn't something that exists in reality.
I disagree with this notion, that it is merely a question of perception, or subjective evaluation, but I'm not really prepared at this point to offer an exhaustive counterargument. I believe such is quantifiable, by, for example, specifying the minimum Finite State Machine that could fully "emulate" the entity in question, and determining the number of State-Event transitions such a model requires. There are probably objections to this that could be made, though, so I'll leave it at that counterproposal without further analysis.
Design ought to be detectable in the fossil record.
Won't work for the simple reason that something being improbable doesn't really prove that it never happened.
"Proof" has nothing to do with what "evidence" is, or what "science" is. I don't know to put your inappropriate expectations for the domain under discussion, and escalation of my original statement to what it was not, any more clearly.
1. Your assertions still are getting presented without evidence
2. You're making the assumption that if not evolution, then design, as if there were only two possibilities.
1. I have given evidence (that is, visual, conclusive evidence) of everything I have asserted--that all biological features existing cannot be accounted for without reference to design. This is a fact of present-day, and at base we are arguing about -when- this fact applies to, not -if-. That is the scope of my expressed position.
2. No, absolutely not. You are making the assumption that features cannot have design as a causal factor. That was your statement at the beginning, what I responded to, and what my position has been since. I am well aware there could be additional causal factors -beyond- that.
I do not agree that complexity is evidence.
Fine. Nonetheless, it is evidence. It is not -conclusive- evidence, as I have stated. If it were not evidence at all, there would not be a few million debates on-line and throughout history debating the strength of that evidence. Again, you are equivocating disingenously.
So, either our number of teeth is from before the jaw shrinkage, in which case wisdom teeth are an evolutionary problem, or you have to find some evidence for extra teeth appearing at around neolithic time.
I am quoting an authority in the field. If he ultimately is incorrect, it makes no difference. The wisdom teeth still have partial utility in the case of tooth loss, giving a rationale for its presence, and even if it were not the case, it remains undemonstrated that causing their elimination by design would not create more issues than it solved, and even if -that- were demonstrated, we are using conjectural, rather than objective, standards for judgment--again, from a naturalist evolutionary perspective, what survived, survived, and it's survival is the only criteria by which we can "measure" it, which it by definition passed.
That still won't work. First, millions of years multiplied by millions of organisms makes even quite unlikely events a lot more likely to happen.
"That won't work". Okay. In the absence of you demonstrating that it won't, I'll put that one down as another psychic claim. As I directly said, the population size and time available would be factored into the probability calculation--it would still resolve to a given probability.
Third, "irreducibly complex" is a big thing to claim, and I've yet to see any instance that hasn't been disproved. So please provide some.
You throw around "proved" and "disproved" remarkably lightly for a discussion about science. To set our context a little, can you name for me a single theory anywhere in any part of any science that has been -proven-? As for these specific cases, I've seen alternate scenarios provided. That is not equivalent to demonstrating that the alternate scenario occurred, or even could occur. Frankly, I don't think genetics is at the point yet of specifying specific causal chains of mutations for relatively-complex biological structures, and I doubt you could provide a single nontrivial case of a proposed IC structure that was -proven- to not be. In any case, this is not the point of my argument, as I stated at the outset--I am not claiming an unassailable IC example will be determined, I am asserting you have not validly argued that it will not be.
Of course it is appropiate. If you claim you saw a polka dot patterned penguin, I'm going to ask for proof of it. And Darwin didn't just go and say "stuff evolves", he produced several books with evidence.
Again, a single case anywhere in science, of something that is -proven-. Science is theory, and theories are contingent. That's what science is. As least this time you aren't phrasing your expectations in such a way as to guarantee the set of words couldn't even theoretically refer to anything in reality, regardless of the topic or the actual facts. There is no such thing as "some proof", or a fractional degree of proof, and so you'll never see such a thing or be given it. Any given thing to which "proof" could apply, would either be proven, or not proven, period. Scientific theories are such as case where "proven" is explicitly off the table if we want to actually be discussing science.
Unless you're going to claim somebody travelled back in time to run genetic experiments, or that aliens dabbled in genetic experimentation for some reason. But the record we have just doesn't match that. Traits don't suddenly appear out of nowhere outside their place in the phylogenic tree.
More accurately, I'm claiming, accurately, that you cannot exclude these possibilities other than by application of the supposed psychic powers you claim. In fact, on some level, traits do "appear out of nowhere", depending on the subjective differential we stipulate from other structures that supposedly pre-exist it. As for "the phylogenic tree", the reality is this is under ongoing revision, most recently with strong biological argument that we will need to add an entire new biological domain. To state that a particular "tree" is established biological fact as opposed to provisional relationships under ongoing correction is simply to misuse the concept.
Like I said, still waiting for your evidence.
Complexity is evidence. However, complexity is not "proof", which is precisely why you asked for a criterion applicable to no actual scientific theory, so that you can decide your stance with information so compelling you have no decision to make--such "proof" would compel your conclusion.
Our permanent teeth are that, permanent.
Well, I'll offer a quote on that, though, unfortunately the original cited document does not appear to
be available on-line:
That's all too vague, and not what I asked for. I asked for predictions, of the future.
Okay, to be clear on what you want, "testability" in a scientific sense isn't sufficient? Because in no way is "predictions, of the future" an essential criterion of a scientific test.
For a "test", that will definitively fall out in a quantifiable sense when we are able to specify the specific set of mutations required for a particular biological feature, apply it across the population size that could have a pre-existing state of, or lack of, that feature, and specify the probability of this occurring as a question of what is ultimately chemistry, across the range of biological features that are proposably "Irreducibly Complex". Not by general conjecture as to how it might have formed, but by calculation of what happened and what could have happened with reasonable probability over the population and timeframe. That is, by hard, quantifiable brute-force calculation of the probability necessary changes on the level of chemistry.
As for epidemiology, as we are differentiating natural viruses from designed ones, the implications of an instance being one or the other would be tremendous. It's the difference between concluding the common cold is going around versus that we are probably being attacked by a biological weapon.
That's an assertion with absolutely no proof behind it. Please provide some. So far you haven't.
Although, of course, asking for "proof" in a scientific context is almost never appropriate, I feel confident this actually suffices as that for our purposes:
There are many, many such equivalent examples, but this one seems particularly... obvious. This biological feature is only explainable as design--because it was factually designed. If you want to modify your stance against design to say "design is not a reasonable explanation for the range of biological features we observe, other than recently, in which case it's plain fact instead", then please do so. Right now you have a universal dismissal of design, which cannot be rendered as a universal statement of biology that remains in any sense "science". That design isn't a factor -previously-, the possibility that remains open, I suppose yields to your psychic powers that no equivalent case of design to what you now have a picture of, before the 20'th century, will ever be identified. Additionally, if you mean you are unconcerned about the scientific question of design, and only care about rejecting theism as your motivation (such that "Intelligent Design" means "design by God", even though it doesn't), please stipulate that too.
That we can replicate is given -- if we didn't, then we wouldn't be here to talk about it.
Replicate--intelligence, technologically or by other means. Which we can't, and we are not "close". That claim's been around since the 40's, and in fact, we're still "20 years away", until another 20 years go by, when we'll again be "just 20 years away". I did not mean "reproduction" in a having-offspring sense.
I would find design a lot more believeable if humans were without misfeatures and vestigial organs. No things like wisdom teeth
Okay, well since you're bringing it up again, with respect to this and the appendix, current scientific consensus is these absolutely did had a purpose, on the basis of our earlier diet, chewing and digestion of it, with the fact dentists were not always available to replace the teeth before migration of the wisdom teeth in the jaw would handle it. Obviously, a "good design" would include functionality over the range of time it needed to be functional, and not only right-this-moment, so I'm not sure where you are going with this. I also don't see how it is a requirement that there are no health problems--that people would be designed to be physically immortal if they were designed a
I'm curious as to where this notion originated, if it wasn't simply someone saying there's a certain class of things I don't like that I'll refer to as "metaphysical" and assert not merely that they aren't real, but that "metaphysical" -means- "not real".
I'm not suggesting you are alone in this, but that "metaphysics" exists, and therefore "metaphysical things" exist, is true according to the entire history of Western Philosophy up to the present day. Try telling a philosophy professor that there is nothing "metaphysical", I'm sure he'll have a few objections to taking away one of the core branches of philosophy existing all the way from Plato and Aristotle all the way through to his current exams, and every philosopher in between.
If you prefer an opinion of someone that you may be more aligned in worldview with, "memes" are absolutely metaphysical and fully endorsed as real by Richard Dawkins.
Saying "there is nothing metaphysical" is exactly equivalent to saying "there is nothing political" or "there is nothing ethical", according to all historical usage I'm aware of. From where are you deriving your usage?
Then we've discovered a very interesting fact of science. Though it wouldn't make a difference from a philosophical viewpoint (as "evolution designed up-front" or "specific design occurring in-process" are both viable positions), it would be very interesting scientifically, such as developing methods of discerning cases of each, likely expanding our abilities at design by reference to pre-existing designed structures, implications for various theories of life-formation or development (e.g. "panspermia" theories of external origination), etc. Since when would, or should, science be indifferent to such discoveries?
Don't see how.
I think you are confused by my statement. Design per se is a fact. That all biological features cannot be accounted for outside of design is fact. If you want to soften your position to "evolution as a causal explanation is sufficient up to a certain point in time", then do so. That the general (universal) statement is false is a matter of the reality of 20'th century genetic engineering.
And as a design, ours is incredibly lousy.
No. Apart from arguing this point with the reality that our design, if we were designed, is astonishingly brilliant to a degree we cannot remotely replicate (such as self-aware intelligence), you are wandering into teleological claims that you have no basis to make within a worldview of naturalism. From the perspective of naturalism, whatever survived, survived, and its survival is fully sufficient to meet the only criteria there is--survival.
But there more potential answers to that than design.
And there is design--the sole one you exclude, for personal reasons that are clear, and have nothing to do with scientific integrity.
Understood. I'll give a little thought to the question of testing that biology was designed, rather than knowing it was designed as -fact-, as we currently know, and propose a test which would test for it, as if we had the absence of the -facts- the test would ostensibly resolve.
As it stands, generally, "the fact we saw it designed" seems to define the testability criteria, for which it now passes admirably.
As for historical cases, though of course you have the exact same limitations of testability (well, except you could offer no test, even theoretically, that would resolve that biology can be accounted for without design, as that result would be contrary to established fact) for your premise, I'm confident a test to differentiate what we now easily differentiate can be formulated, to resist even your most overwhelmingly biased attempts to exclude it.
But, it's 3 AM here, and I'd rather sleep for now. Stay tuned.
2. If evolution is flawed, it won't result in concessions towards the creationist stance
I'm confused by this statement. How do you possibly know this, other than by assertion you're psychic as to the future determinations of science? You wouldn't consider a biological structure that -could not- come into existence apart from design, due to the probability of the aggregate mutations required while retaining survivability, to be a "concession"?
I'm not asserting such will be found, I'm wondering by what means you are asserting it -will not- be found.
Really, though, I've already fallen into your misleading equivocation of meaning "evolution" as "an exhaustive explanation of origins" rather than "a set of biological processes that are observed to occur". This is, the equivocation of "evolution occurs" to "-only- evolution occurs". Yes, I understand you absolutely need the second to be the case for your worldview preference to be viable, but it is, despite you personally needing it to be otherwise, of course, a wholly untestable, unfalsifiable, and unscientific premise.
Well, actually, it might be falsifiable, but only in the sense that it already has been falsified. We cannot account for all biological features through evolutionary processes, as an issue of fact, rather than conjecture, ever since we ourselves started doing the designing. We know this falsification via the news, as one of hundreds of sources. How you know it won't also be further falsified by further examples from earlier timeframes, a priori, is beyond me, outside of your apparent psychic powers.
Pascal's Wager also does not stipulate it is to be considered the -sole- source of defining or validating a particular God.
Were I to context-drop, that is, as you are, fail to live by my rational thoughts, I might conclude this.
However, we are quite free to refer to other sources for such information, such as, the particular nature of NDE experiences, probability of relative success at prescience (i.e. prophecy), strength of claims on the basis of willing martyrdom, etc.
There may be infinite imaginable "gods", but there are not infinite equally-plausible ones.
But let's resolve this question immediately. Which god are we talking about, or do we have no idea what the topic here is? No, we're talking about the one -you- think we are, which is also the most-plausible one according to -you-.
Precisely the same basic line of reasoning, with the addition of noting theists never (okay, rarely) make such an argument. Atheists just claim they do, to misrepresent theism and trot out their own stock answer to a erroneous rendering of the argument with a stock "scam" of their own--you know, the one that actually occurs ad-nauseam in real life.
I was going to leave it at my previous post, but since you went there...
And, yes, betting on a stock with a huge upside and no downside is still the rational choice, and note I've said nothing about knowing what the stock will do as an issue of fact about the future.
To clarify my post's link, I mean these guys, who generally used their "eye" references somewhat more symbolically and less literally--consistent with the translated text.
Going by the translated text describing the apparently-ceremonial activity at the end of the summary's linked pdf, and given this is 1800's Germany, it seems much more likely it was produced by a rather more... well-known secret society of the timeframe than a mysterious band of rogue ophthalmologists...
Personally, I am an Old Earth Creationist and consider Genesis to be largely allegorical (though, I do believe Adam and Eve actually existed, as "metaphysical clones", if you will, from a pre-existing population of humans per se), but I do find this "per the laws of physics, the apparent artifacts of time must be present for a viable physical structure" position to be able to be taken remarkably far...
Since you replied to few points of mine (those you apparently thought germane to your objectives), I'll do the same with respect to your rather-long post. Though, no, I won't be agreeing to any rules of debate other than logic whatsoever here, as I'd probably find that annoyingly restrictive, generally am civil anyway, and such things as you perhaps feeling "threatened" by the fact that your position inevitably loses as a simple matter of entropy isn't really my problem.
Firstly, I'd like to propose a parallel request to your "an argument supporting the existence of one or more gods", which you seem rather fixated on for rhetorical purposes in substitution to wide range of formulations that would answer something actually important (that is, whether there is a God that is by-progression-of-consensus monotheistic, and such a God should be followed)...
That would be, what would be your objections to someone meeting the proposal that "My political party is correct in its core positions" with "Present an argument proving the correctness of one or more correct political parties". Your formulation makes a metaphysical assumption, that "one or more gods" could be an actual metaphysical situation, and you want to be presented with selectively the particular arguments supporting arbitrary choice between "one or more" for what is, in fact, not a context allowing for that arbitrary selection. If in fact, there was One True Political Party (a question very much open), there logically could not be any arguments that support that particular true one being true, and equally supports all other contrary ones being true.
It would be, quite simply, an invalid formulation to the question specifically designed to be such--so that in no possible world could it be answered, not as a matter of what is true, but as a matter of your question stipulating logically-contradictory requirements such that no argument of any type, regarding any subject, could exist to meet the criteria. The way you've presented the question logically guarantees there could be no valid response, regardless of what is factually true.
I suspect you are intelligent enough to be, or become, aware you are deliberately doing this, but in the case you are simply parroting a shopworn formulation, I'll present that as a followup question/argument.
As for the (again, mostly not germane) elaborations on evolution, rather that tease apart which areas we are, and are not, in agreement on, I'll quote one statement in particular:
"The different aspects of evolutionary modes, and other ways (non evolutionary) the pattern of life could change - would not be understood by creationists, and mentioning them would reinforce their belief that 'evolution' was 'wrong'."
Well, I seem to be an (Old Earth) "Creationist", and I understand them, or at minimum a wide range of them. I'm not sure where the existence of retroviral effects et al speaks to the base question of design. It seems, in fact, the core distinction here is that you do not accept the range of "other ways (non evolutionary) the pattern of life could change", in that you exclude changes occurring as a function of design specifically. As for the historical "record" contained by DNA's structure, you would have to state how these variances could differentiate between a human and a -clone- of a human, as that is the only overt genetic manipulation required by my theological position.
My guess, based on previous experience, is you mean by "valid", "whatever I need it to mean to exclude what I'm presented with", but if not, please give a clearer indicator of your expectations.
Without that, it's difficult to offer you what you say you want that you absolutely don't want. Yes, I do in fact know that from your demand for "proof" in a manner you'd do so for no other form of human endeavor or knowledge, including hundreds of like acceptances outside of religion you do every single day.
But, on with the request. I offered "evidence", per what a non-biased request in any similar domain would be. Is this qualifying for you?
As for evolution, I'm not sure why you are bringing that up. Most theists accept evolution, including myself, except in the narrow sense that you need to equivocate the meaning to, but which happens to also be completely untestable and unscientific, that is, "only evolution occurs". As an advocate of science, of course I reject that usage, as an implied exhaustive explanation of origins, as everyone actually following science (including the principle of falsifiability) must.
I think you'd need to clarify a few terms here, to continue. But, if not, no real need for us to--your outcome of becoming gone and irrelevant, along with all your arguments, is inevitable, as we'd both agree from either of our respective worldviews.
Please supply a valid argument to prove any principle of any of the sciences.
I made it easy on you, and didn't even ask for proof of the views of the political party you ascribe to, or the principle of economics you agree with. And yes, you unquestionably agree with -one of the alternatives-. Don't be a hypocrite now--prove it.
Switching instead to the intellectually-honest form of the request you could have made, rather than suggest you want to make your decision based on a degree of "proof" that would -force you to decide in that way-, are you actually meaning you are asking for "evidence", here?
Usually, it works better to demonstrate an actual fallacy in the argument at hand than just assert all viewpoints other than yours are "fallacious" with no evidence of this provided.
But, to start, it is indeed fallacious for you to suggest that "justify" is the same as "prove", as most domains of human knowledge have as their best-case epistemological status the former and not the latter, including the hard sciences.
No, not in the least. That ID says all complex structures -must- be designed is just something its opponents make up that ID says. As usual for such claims, nobody actually advocating ID actually says this. "Plausibly indicates design", yes. "Must be designed", no.
It's just a Straw Man to fit a particular preconceived argument, and if the facts don't justify the claim as to an opponent's position, well then, it seems, the answer is to just make up the facts and go ahead and insist what their stance is for them. Convenient, at least.
As a general metaphysical/philosophical statement, though, there is no problem saying that certain complex entities are designed, and others are not. How do I know you agree? Because you'd have no problem saying a computer is designed, but the computer's designer is not designed. Substitute "man" for "computer" and "computer's designer" for "God" here, and it should be clear enough that the objection is erroneous--and that saying by claiming a given category of thing is designed, one must claim that everything with similar must be designed, is just a non-sequitur here.
Thanks for your thoughtful (and thorough) response.
I do not have the depth of domain knowledge in biology that you do (indeed, the software analogies were quite clarifying), so do not have the ability to specify which particular cases may be more "interesting" in terms of my thought-experiment, but I'm rather intrigued as to what might be a method for definitively discerning the origins of a particular biological feature for the "general case".
Say, as another scenario, we propose that 50000 years from now, anthropology unearths a rare creature we might describe in terms of overt physical features as "unicorn-like". That is, basically a horse with mutation(s) that lead to a long horn protuberance from the skull. As before, we are examining the DNA from a projected future timeframe in which both natural selection and genetic engineering are known to be causal factors historically.
In this case, we presumably would not immediately conclude it was designed due to the synthetic nature of the requirements of biological feature as in the case of the fluorescent protein, and presumably we would not discount a natural selection explanation due to being clearly actively maladaptive (intuitively, as least, we could see the horn as potentially of selection advantage due to its defensive capability), so, seemingly, we would be left with more sophisticated methods which, I would think, could vary from case-to-case.
So, I suppose, a better way to phrase my question would be... from your perspective, would it be the case that -all- genetic modifications could be differentiated between being caused by natural processes versus human engineering, or would some cases of genetic engineering be in effect "undetectable" at that future date?
I missed which one of these would be "extra-miraculous", and outside of the base notion of miracles per se, in terms of getting you the incredulity you're looking for.
Slashdot Mirror
I mean that you can't draw the conclusion "it must have been designed" from the observation "There's only a 0.001% chance it could have happened over the known timeline". As far as we can tell, the universe doesn't seem to be full of life, so it may well be that it's something that very rarely happens.
I'm not drawing the conclusion it must be designed. I am drawing the conclusion it is -plausible- it is designed. I know precisely the scope of claims I am making, and am making them to precisely that degree. I will be continuing to decline amplification of "evidence" to "proof" and "is plausible that" to "must be". I know the arguments after the amplification is implicitly accepted, for those who fail to notice, or don't know exactly what their position is. I'm not among them. My objection, from the beginning, was and stems from your statement that you apparently know that design will not be a conclusion in the unknown future of science. I continue to maintain that you cannot, and am not claiming that I can "prove God did it". We have, though, as knowns, 1 "successful" production of intelligent life out of 1 verifiable universe "attempts"--if we allow for teleology--and this in itself to me speaks to plausibility, though not "proof".
Er, no, you haven't. You've not even described a single thing you think is irreductibly complex. You just keep claiming that there is, but never show.
I'm not sure if I'm being unclear, or if my point is just so rock-simple on its basic level that you can't believe my point was actually what it was--but it is. I showed you a picture of fluorescent cats that were demonstrably designed, by virtue of being designed by genetic engineers. I am quite aware of the effect an established paradigm has over habitual interpretation of information, and I am attempting to break that paradigm for the purposes of discussion by pointing out a fact which, though it may be banal, is conveniently unarguably true. We cannot, as a matter of fact and science, say "We can account for all biological features without reference to design". This can no longer be -accurately- proposed as a universal fact about biology. It's immediately falsified by present-day genetic engineering. Were I discussing it with a biology professor, say, in a class, I'd actually make him do the circumlocution every time he made a claim from the perspective of naturalism, such as "evolution and ancillary processes can account for all biological features" to say, if nothing else, "evolution and ancillary processes can account for all biological features up until approximately 1970 A.D." Why? Because a) it's the rendering of the statement that actually is scientifically viable, and b) it forces consideration of the issue outside of a default paradigm. Further, this impacts the question of testability--on the face of it, either we are suddenly unable to test for basic facts (testing to detect design, performed by testing the organism itself, rather than happening to know it was designed from publications/media about the engineers), or testability in this case has wider aspects than a simple "not testable, not scientific" (lest we be forced to say that fluorescent cats were designed is a fact, but this is not a "scientific fact").
The largest problem I have is that "complexity" isn't something that exists in reality.
I disagree with this notion, that it is merely a question of perception, or subjective evaluation, but I'm not really prepared at this point to offer an exhaustive counterargument. I believe such is quantifiable, by, for example, specifying the minimum Finite State Machine that could fully "emulate" the entity in question, and determining the number of State-Event transitions such a model requires. There are probably objections to this that could be made, though, so I'll leave it at that counterproposal without further analysis.
Design ought to be detectable in the fossil record.
Seems plausible, but I still think we lack t
Okay, in brief.
Won't work for the simple reason that something being improbable doesn't really prove that it never happened.
"Proof" has nothing to do with what "evidence" is, or what "science" is. I don't know to put your inappropriate expectations for the domain under discussion, and escalation of my original statement to what it was not, any more clearly.
1. Your assertions still are getting presented without evidence
2. You're making the assumption that if not evolution, then design, as if there were only two possibilities.
1. I have given evidence (that is, visual, conclusive evidence) of everything I have asserted--that all biological features existing cannot be accounted for without reference to design. This is a fact of present-day, and at base we are arguing about -when- this fact applies to, not -if-. That is the scope of my expressed position.
2. No, absolutely not. You are making the assumption that features cannot have design as a causal factor. That was your statement at the beginning, what I responded to, and what my position has been since. I am well aware there could be additional causal factors -beyond- that.
I do not agree that complexity is evidence.
Fine. Nonetheless, it is evidence. It is not -conclusive- evidence, as I have stated. If it were not evidence at all, there would not be a few million debates on-line and throughout history debating the strength of that evidence. Again, you are equivocating disingenously.
So, either our number of teeth is from before the jaw shrinkage, in which case wisdom teeth are an evolutionary problem, or you have to find some evidence for extra teeth appearing at around neolithic time.
I am quoting an authority in the field. If he ultimately is incorrect, it makes no difference. The wisdom teeth still have partial utility in the case of tooth loss, giving a rationale for its presence, and even if it were not the case, it remains undemonstrated that causing their elimination by design would not create more issues than it solved, and even if -that- were demonstrated, we are using conjectural, rather than objective, standards for judgment--again, from a naturalist evolutionary perspective, what survived, survived, and it's survival is the only criteria by which we can "measure" it, which it by definition passed.
That still won't work. First, millions of years multiplied by millions of organisms makes even quite unlikely events a lot more likely to happen.
"That won't work". Okay. In the absence of you demonstrating that it won't, I'll put that one down as another psychic claim. As I directly said, the population size and time available would be factored into the probability calculation--it would still resolve to a given probability.
Third, "irreducibly complex" is a big thing to claim, and I've yet to see any instance that hasn't been disproved. So please provide some.
You throw around "proved" and "disproved" remarkably lightly for a discussion about science. To set our context a little, can you name for me a single theory anywhere in any part of any science that has been -proven-? As for these specific cases, I've seen alternate scenarios provided. That is not equivalent to demonstrating that the alternate scenario occurred, or even could occur. Frankly, I don't think genetics is at the point yet of specifying specific causal chains of mutations for relatively-complex biological structures, and I doubt you could provide a single nontrivial case of a proposed IC structure that was -proven- to not be. In any case, this is not the point of my argument, as I stated at the outset--I am not claiming an unassailable IC example will be determined, I am asserting you have not validly argued that it will not be.
Of course it is appropiate. If you claim you saw a polka dot patterned penguin, I'm going to ask for proof of it. And Darwin didn't just go and say "stuff evolves", he produced several books with evidence.
Again, a single case anywhere in science, of something that is -proven-. Science is theory, and theories are contingent. That's what science is. As least this time you aren't phrasing your expectations in such a way as to guarantee the set of words couldn't even theoretically refer to anything in reality, regardless of the topic or the actual facts. There is no such thing as "some proof", or a fractional degree of proof, and so you'll never see such a thing or be given it. Any given thing to which "proof" could apply, would either be proven, or not proven, period. Scientific theories are such as case where "proven" is explicitly off the table if we want to actually be discussing science.
Unless you're going to claim somebody travelled back in time to run genetic experiments, or that aliens dabbled in genetic experimentation for some reason. But the record we have just doesn't match that. Traits don't suddenly appear out of nowhere outside their place in the phylogenic tree.
More accurately, I'm claiming, accurately, that you cannot exclude these possibilities other than by application of the supposed psychic powers you claim. In fact, on some level, traits do "appear out of nowhere", depending on the subjective differential we stipulate from other structures that supposedly pre-exist it. As for "the phylogenic tree", the reality is this is under ongoing revision, most recently with strong biological argument that we will need to add an entire new biological domain. To state that a particular "tree" is established biological fact as opposed to provisional relationships under ongoing correction is simply to misuse the concept.
Like I said, still waiting for your evidence.
Complexity is evidence. However, complexity is not "proof", which is precisely why you asked for a criterion applicable to no actual scientific theory, so that you can decide your stance with information so compelling you have no decision to make--such "proof" would compel your conclusion.
Our permanent teeth are that, permanent.
Well, I'll offer a quote on that, though, unfortunately the original cited document does not appear to be available on-line:
"According to the British Journal of Oral an
That's all too vague, and not what I asked for. I asked for predictions, of the future.
Okay, to be clear on what you want, "testability" in a scientific sense isn't sufficient? Because in no way is "predictions, of the future" an essential criterion of a scientific test.
For a "test", that will definitively fall out in a quantifiable sense when we are able to specify the specific set of mutations required for a particular biological feature, apply it across the population size that could have a pre-existing state of, or lack of, that feature, and specify the probability of this occurring as a question of what is ultimately chemistry, across the range of biological features that are proposably "Irreducibly Complex". Not by general conjecture as to how it might have formed, but by calculation of what happened and what could have happened with reasonable probability over the population and timeframe. That is, by hard, quantifiable brute-force calculation of the probability necessary changes on the level of chemistry.
As for epidemiology, as we are differentiating natural viruses from designed ones, the implications of an instance being one or the other would be tremendous. It's the difference between concluding the common cold is going around versus that we are probably being attacked by a biological weapon.
That's an assertion with absolutely no proof behind it. Please provide some. So far you haven't.
Although, of course, asking for "proof" in a scientific context is almost never appropriate, I feel confident this actually suffices as that for our purposes:
Fluorescent cats.
There are many, many such equivalent examples, but this one seems particularly... obvious. This biological feature is only explainable as design--because it was factually designed. If you want to modify your stance against design to say "design is not a reasonable explanation for the range of biological features we observe, other than recently, in which case it's plain fact instead", then please do so. Right now you have a universal dismissal of design, which cannot be rendered as a universal statement of biology that remains in any sense "science". That design isn't a factor -previously-, the possibility that remains open, I suppose yields to your psychic powers that no equivalent case of design to what you now have a picture of, before the 20'th century, will ever be identified. Additionally, if you mean you are unconcerned about the scientific question of design, and only care about rejecting theism as your motivation (such that "Intelligent Design" means "design by God", even though it doesn't), please stipulate that too.
That we can replicate is given -- if we didn't, then we wouldn't be here to talk about it.
Replicate--intelligence, technologically or by other means. Which we can't, and we are not "close". That claim's been around since the 40's, and in fact, we're still "20 years away", until another 20 years go by, when we'll again be "just 20 years away". I did not mean "reproduction" in a having-offspring sense.
I would find design a lot more believeable if humans were without misfeatures and vestigial organs. No things like wisdom teeth
Okay, well since you're bringing it up again, with respect to this and the appendix, current scientific consensus is these absolutely did had a purpose, on the basis of our earlier diet, chewing and digestion of it, with the fact dentists were not always available to replace the teeth before migration of the wisdom teeth in the jaw would handle it. Obviously, a "good design" would include functionality over the range of time it needed to be functional, and not only right-this-moment, so I'm not sure where you are going with this. I also don't see how it is a requirement that there are no health problems--that people would be designed to be physically immortal if they were designed a
Also, metaphysical == not real.
I'm curious as to where this notion originated, if it wasn't simply someone saying there's a certain class of things I don't like that I'll refer to as "metaphysical" and assert not merely that they aren't real, but that "metaphysical" -means- "not real".
I'm not suggesting you are alone in this, but that "metaphysics" exists, and therefore "metaphysical things" exist, is true according to the entire history of Western Philosophy up to the present day. Try telling a philosophy professor that there is nothing "metaphysical", I'm sure he'll have a few objections to taking away one of the core branches of philosophy existing all the way from Plato and Aristotle all the way through to his current exams, and every philosopher in between.
If you prefer an opinion of someone that you may be more aligned in worldview with, "memes" are absolutely metaphysical and fully endorsed as real by Richard Dawkins.
Saying "there is nothing metaphysical" is exactly equivalent to saying "there is nothing political" or "there is nothing ethical", according to all historical usage I'm aware of. From where are you deriving your usage?
But, if biology is designed, then what?
Then we've discovered a very interesting fact of science. Though it wouldn't make a difference from a philosophical viewpoint (as "evolution designed up-front" or "specific design occurring in-process" are both viable positions), it would be very interesting scientifically, such as developing methods of discerning cases of each, likely expanding our abilities at design by reference to pre-existing designed structures, implications for various theories of life-formation or development (e.g. "panspermia" theories of external origination), etc. Since when would, or should, science be indifferent to such discoveries?
Don't see how.
I think you are confused by my statement. Design per se is a fact. That all biological features cannot be accounted for outside of design is fact. If you want to soften your position to "evolution as a causal explanation is sufficient up to a certain point in time", then do so. That the general (universal) statement is false is a matter of the reality of 20'th century genetic engineering.
And as a design, ours is incredibly lousy.
No. Apart from arguing this point with the reality that our design, if we were designed, is astonishingly brilliant to a degree we cannot remotely replicate (such as self-aware intelligence), you are wandering into teleological claims that you have no basis to make within a worldview of naturalism. From the perspective of naturalism, whatever survived, survived, and its survival is fully sufficient to meet the only criteria there is--survival.
But there more potential answers to that than design.
And there is design--the sole one you exclude, for personal reasons that are clear, and have nothing to do with scientific integrity.
Understood. I'll give a little thought to the question of testing that biology was designed, rather than knowing it was designed as -fact-, as we currently know, and propose a test which would test for it, as if we had the absence of the -facts- the test would ostensibly resolve.
As it stands, generally, "the fact we saw it designed" seems to define the testability criteria, for which it now passes admirably.
As for historical cases, though of course you have the exact same limitations of testability (well, except you could offer no test, even theoretically, that would resolve that biology can be accounted for without design, as that result would be contrary to established fact) for your premise, I'm confident a test to differentiate what we now easily differentiate can be formulated, to resist even your most overwhelmingly biased attempts to exclude it.
But, it's 3 AM here, and I'd rather sleep for now. Stay tuned.
So, at 21 Grams, how many terabytes would our souls contain? ;)
2. If evolution is flawed, it won't result in concessions towards the creationist stance
I'm confused by this statement. How do you possibly know this, other than by assertion you're psychic as to the future determinations of science? You wouldn't consider a biological structure that -could not- come into existence apart from design, due to the probability of the aggregate mutations required while retaining survivability, to be a "concession"?
I'm not asserting such will be found, I'm wondering by what means you are asserting it -will not- be found.
Really, though, I've already fallen into your misleading equivocation of meaning "evolution" as "an exhaustive explanation of origins" rather than "a set of biological processes that are observed to occur". This is, the equivocation of "evolution occurs" to "-only- evolution occurs". Yes, I understand you absolutely need the second to be the case for your worldview preference to be viable, but it is, despite you personally needing it to be otherwise, of course, a wholly untestable, unfalsifiable, and unscientific premise.
Well, actually, it might be falsifiable, but only in the sense that it already has been falsified. We cannot account for all biological features through evolutionary processes, as an issue of fact, rather than conjecture, ever since we ourselves started doing the designing. We know this falsification via the news, as one of hundreds of sources. How you know it won't also be further falsified by further examples from earlier timeframes, a priori, is beyond me, outside of your apparent psychic powers.
Pascal's Wager also does not stipulate it is to be considered the -sole- source of defining or validating a particular God.
Were I to context-drop, that is, as you are, fail to live by my rational thoughts, I might conclude this.
However, we are quite free to refer to other sources for such information, such as, the particular nature of NDE experiences, probability of relative success at prescience (i.e. prophecy), strength of claims on the basis of willing martyrdom, etc.
There may be infinite imaginable "gods", but there are not infinite equally-plausible ones.
But let's resolve this question immediately. Which god are we talking about, or do we have no idea what the topic here is? No, we're talking about the one -you- think we are, which is also the most-plausible one according to -you-.
Precisely the same basic line of reasoning, with the addition of noting theists never (okay, rarely) make such an argument. Atheists just claim they do, to misrepresent theism and trot out their own stock answer to a erroneous rendering of the argument with a stock "scam" of their own--you know, the one that actually occurs ad-nauseam in real life.
I was going to leave it at my previous post, but since you went there...
And, yes, betting on a stock with a huge upside and no downside is still the rational choice, and note I've said nothing about knowing what the stock will do as an issue of fact about the future.
Except the word "lie" addresses truth-value, and Pascal's Wager makes no claim that it speaks to the truth-value of the proposition.
I think you're thinking of the standard Straw Man misstatement of Pascal's Wager.
To clarify my post's link, I mean these guys, who generally used their "eye" references somewhat more symbolically and less literally--consistent with the translated text.
Hmm... have I just been trolled?
Going by the translated text describing the apparently-ceremonial activity at the end of the summary's linked pdf, and given this is 1800's Germany, it seems much more likely it was produced by a rather more... well-known secret society of the timeframe than a mysterious band of rogue ophthalmologists...
Convincing argument, there.
I'll let entropy handle you.
Personally, I am an Old Earth Creationist and consider Genesis to be largely allegorical (though, I do believe Adam and Eve actually existed, as "metaphysical clones", if you will, from a pre-existing population of humans per se), but I do find this "per the laws of physics, the apparent artifacts of time must be present for a viable physical structure" position to be able to be taken remarkably far...
Since you replied to few points of mine (those you apparently thought germane to your objectives), I'll do the same with respect to your rather-long post. Though, no, I won't be agreeing to any rules of debate other than logic whatsoever here, as I'd probably find that annoyingly restrictive, generally am civil anyway, and such things as you perhaps feeling "threatened" by the fact that your position inevitably loses as a simple matter of entropy isn't really my problem.
Firstly, I'd like to propose a parallel request to your "an argument supporting the existence of one or more gods", which you seem rather fixated on for rhetorical purposes in substitution to wide range of formulations that would answer something actually important (that is, whether there is a God that is by-progression-of-consensus monotheistic, and such a God should be followed)...
That would be, what would be your objections to someone meeting the proposal that "My political party is correct in its core positions" with "Present an argument proving the correctness of one or more correct political parties". Your formulation makes a metaphysical assumption, that "one or more gods" could be an actual metaphysical situation, and you want to be presented with selectively the particular arguments supporting arbitrary choice between "one or more" for what is, in fact, not a context allowing for that arbitrary selection. If in fact, there was One True Political Party (a question very much open), there logically could not be any arguments that support that particular true one being true, and equally supports all other contrary ones being true.
It would be, quite simply, an invalid formulation to the question specifically designed to be such--so that in no possible world could it be answered, not as a matter of what is true, but as a matter of your question stipulating logically-contradictory requirements such that no argument of any type, regarding any subject, could exist to meet the criteria. The way you've presented the question logically guarantees there could be no valid response, regardless of what is factually true.
I suspect you are intelligent enough to be, or become, aware you are deliberately doing this, but in the case you are simply parroting a shopworn formulation, I'll present that as a followup question/argument.
As for the (again, mostly not germane) elaborations on evolution, rather that tease apart which areas we are, and are not, in agreement on, I'll quote one statement in particular:
"The different aspects of evolutionary modes, and other ways (non evolutionary) the pattern of life could change - would not be understood by creationists, and mentioning them would reinforce their belief that 'evolution' was 'wrong'."
Well, I seem to be an (Old Earth) "Creationist", and I understand them, or at minimum a wide range of them. I'm not sure where the existence of retroviral effects et al speaks to the base question of design. It seems, in fact, the core distinction here is that you do not accept the range of "other ways (non evolutionary) the pattern of life could change", in that you exclude changes occurring as a function of design specifically. As for the historical "record" contained by DNA's structure, you would have to state how these variances could differentiate between a human and a -clone- of a human, as that is the only overt genetic manipulation required by my theological position.
As far as I can tell, there are no valid arguments to support the notion of one or more gods.
Well, since I have basis to think it's necessary here, what do you consider "valid" and "supporting"?
Peer-reviewed medical studies?
Prophecy fulfillment? (Yes, I know the standard objections. Drop all the ones remotely possibly "self-fulfilling", reduce the improbability a million-fold after that, it's still extremely improbable.)
Willing martyrdom of contemporaries, that is, those in a position to -know- they are dying for a lie, if they were?
Formal philosophical arguments?
My guess, based on previous experience, is you mean by "valid", "whatever I need it to mean to exclude what I'm presented with", but if not, please give a clearer indicator of your expectations.
Without that, it's difficult to offer you what you say you want that you absolutely don't want. Yes, I do in fact know that from your demand for "proof" in a manner you'd do so for no other form of human endeavor or knowledge, including hundreds of like acceptances outside of religion you do every single day.
But, on with the request. I offered "evidence", per what a non-biased request in any similar domain would be. Is this qualifying for you?
As for evolution, I'm not sure why you are bringing that up. Most theists accept evolution, including myself, except in the narrow sense that you need to equivocate the meaning to, but which happens to also be completely untestable and unscientific, that is, "only evolution occurs". As an advocate of science, of course I reject that usage, as an implied exhaustive explanation of origins, as everyone actually following science (including the principle of falsifiability) must.
I think you'd need to clarify a few terms here, to continue. But, if not, no real need for us to--your outcome of becoming gone and irrelevant, along with all your arguments, is inevitable, as we'd both agree from either of our respective worldviews.
Please supply a valid argument to prove any principle of any of the sciences.
I made it easy on you, and didn't even ask for proof of the views of the political party you ascribe to, or the principle of economics you agree with. And yes, you unquestionably agree with -one of the alternatives-. Don't be a hypocrite now--prove it.
Switching instead to the intellectually-honest form of the request you could have made, rather than suggest you want to make your decision based on a degree of "proof" that would -force you to decide in that way-, are you actually meaning you are asking for "evidence", here?
Usually, it works better to demonstrate an actual fallacy in the argument at hand than just assert all viewpoints other than yours are "fallacious" with no evidence of this provided.
But, to start, it is indeed fallacious for you to suggest that "justify" is the same as "prove", as most domains of human knowledge have as their best-case epistemological status the former and not the latter, including the hard sciences.
No, not in the least. That ID says all complex structures -must- be designed is just something its opponents make up that ID says. As usual for such claims, nobody actually advocating ID actually says this. "Plausibly indicates design", yes. "Must be designed", no.
It's just a Straw Man to fit a particular preconceived argument, and if the facts don't justify the claim as to an opponent's position, well then, it seems, the answer is to just make up the facts and go ahead and insist what their stance is for them. Convenient, at least.
As a general metaphysical/philosophical statement, though, there is no problem saying that certain complex entities are designed, and others are not. How do I know you agree? Because you'd have no problem saying a computer is designed, but the computer's designer is not designed. Substitute "man" for "computer" and "computer's designer" for "God" here, and it should be clear enough that the objection is erroneous--and that saying by claiming a given category of thing is designed, one must claim that everything with similar must be designed, is just a non-sequitur here.
Fortunately, the EU is made up of organisms with the magical rights-imbuing DNA sequence, so we should care about that.
Oh wait. Naturalism is still philosophically incoherent, isn't it? Forgot there for a second.
Mu.
No better way to eliminate the plausibility of design than by designing it.
Thanks for your thoughtful (and thorough) response.
I do not have the depth of domain knowledge in biology that you do (indeed, the software analogies were quite clarifying), so do not have the ability to specify which particular cases may be more "interesting" in terms of my thought-experiment, but I'm rather intrigued as to what might be a method for definitively discerning the origins of a particular biological feature for the "general case".
Say, as another scenario, we propose that 50000 years from now, anthropology unearths a rare creature we might describe in terms of overt physical features as "unicorn-like". That is, basically a horse with mutation(s) that lead to a long horn protuberance from the skull. As before, we are examining the DNA from a projected future timeframe in which both natural selection and genetic engineering are known to be causal factors historically.
In this case, we presumably would not immediately conclude it was designed due to the synthetic nature of the requirements of biological feature as in the case of the fluorescent protein, and presumably we would not discount a natural selection explanation due to being clearly actively maladaptive (intuitively, as least, we could see the horn as potentially of selection advantage due to its defensive capability), so, seemingly, we would be left with more sophisticated methods which, I would think, could vary from case-to-case.
So, I suppose, a better way to phrase my question would be... from your perspective, would it be the case that -all- genetic modifications could be differentiated between being caused by natural processes versus human engineering, or would some cases of genetic engineering be in effect "undetectable" at that future date?
I missed which one of these would be "extra-miraculous", and outside of the base notion of miracles per se, in terms of getting you the incredulity you're looking for.